PHOENIX -- A state appellate court on Tuesday ruled that Maricopa County can't enforce a jail policy that bars transporting jail inmates for elective abortions without a court order.

Read the court's ruling.

The unanimous ruling said the policy was an "exaggerated response" to the requirements of running a jail and violates the privacy rights of the inmates under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The American Civil Liberties Union had sued to challenge Sheriff Joe Arpaio's policy and won in trial court. Arpaio appealed but the three-judge Court of Appeals panel on Tuesday unanimously upheld the lower court ruling.

The suit was filed on behalf of an unidentified woman who discovered she was pregnant shortly before being taken into custody after being sentenced. She sought an abortion but sheriff's officials refused to transport her until she obtained a court order.

State law prohibits spending public money for an abortion unless needed to save a woman's life, but no county spending for the actual abortion is at issue in the case, the Court of Appeals said.

The county routinely and safely transports many inmates to and from a variety of locations for medical services and other purposes, and there's no indication that transporting for abortions would be burdensome, according to the ruling written by Judge Patrick Irvine.

The state and Pima County voluntarily transport inmates for abortion services, the ruling stated.

"While we recognize that the county might decline to transport an inmate who presents a particular security or liability concern, an indiscriminate ban on all transportation for non-therapeutic abortions does not allow inmates sufficient alternative means to exercise their right to choose to have an abortion," Irvine wrote.

Arpaio said he will ask the Arizona Supreme Court to erase the lower courts' rulings. "This is an important ruling," Arpaio said. "Of course I want to appeal it."

Only five or six inmates have obtained court orders for transportation for abortions since the county policy was implemented in 1990, the ruling said.

Arpaio, a Republican who was elected in 1992 and took office in 1993, said he supports the policy of requiring a court order.

"I'm not going to transport prisoners to an abortion clinic on a voluntary basis to spend government money to run a taxi service," Arpaio said. "This is volunteer. This is no health problem. I don't believe in this."

An ACLU lawyer hailed the latest ruling.

"Prison officials can no longer stand in the way of the medical needs of women in prison," said Brigitte Amiri, an ACLU staff attorney. "A woman in jail has a right to make her own decision about whether to have a child."